Effective static and dynamic finite element modeling of a double swept composite rotor blade

The paper concerns mechanical responses of helicopter blades made of composite materials. Structures with complicated geometries are modeled by using both beam and solid finite elements. The adopted one-dimensional kinematics only encompasses pure displacements; therefore, the connection with three-dimensional elements can be carried out with ease. Contributions to elastic and inertial matrices deriving from nodes shared by beams and solids are merely summed together through a standard assembling procedure. Stress, free vibration, and time response analyses have been performed on different configurations. A straight metallic rotating structure and a swept-tip blade made of an orthotropic material have been considered for verification and validation purposes. Current results have been compared with experimental data and numerical solutions available in the literature. Furthermore, a straight and a double-swept blade with a realistic airfoil have been studied. For the straight configuration, the one-dimensional results have been compared with finite element solutions obtained with commercial software. The methodology enabled complicated stress distributions and coupling phenomena to be predicted with reasonable accuracy and affordable computational efforts.